Entertainment
Specters, lies and videotape: Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Presence’ jolts Sundance to life
Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence,” a sleek and sublimely nimble ghost story with a world-premiere Friday night at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival, hinges on a formal conceit so spookily effective that it’s hard to believe it’s never been attempted before. Maybe it has been (the history of independent cinema contains unseen, uncovered multitudes), though surely not to such thrillingly sustained ends, or with such ingenious modesty of means.
For the entirety of this 85-minute movie, we are in a handsome Craftsman-style home where a married couple, Rebecca (Lucy Liu) and Chris (Chris Sullivan), have recently moved in with their teenage children, Tyler (Eddy Maday) and Chloe (Callina Liang). From the start, as nerves fray and tempers flare, it’s clear this family has its demons, which will soon be supernaturally compounded by eerie rumblings, self-operating doors and collapsing shelves. But if the genre trappings seem familiar, it’s the prowling, ghostlike vantage of the camera that makes all the difference: Soderbergh has elected to tell this haunted-house story entirely from the perspective of the haunter. Shooting in wide-angled long takes that range in tenor from voyeuristic languor to nerve-shredding anxiety, he transforms a domestic horror exercise into another Soderberghian tour de force.
For all its conceptual spareness, “Presence” has any number of built-in reference points, including Soderbergh’s own recent exercises in physical and narrative confinement, like “Unsane” and “Kimi” (which, like this movie, was written by David Koepp). Those two movies, incidentally, were both centered on a smart, rattled woman who maintains a tight grip on her wits and sanity even as they’re repeatedly called into question; the same is true of “Presence,” in which Chloe, still grieving the recent death of a close friend, senses the ghost far more acutely than her parents and brother do.
Pedro Pascal in the movie “Freaky Tales.”
(Sundance Institute)
The sight of a fractious family under continual surveillance might also remind you of the “Paranormal Activity” movies, although what’s striking about the camerawork in “Presence” is how the camera seems to hover — and shiver — with more compassion than menace. You wonder almost immediately if this spectral visitor, for all the trouble it causes, might also be a benevolent one. That idea becomes even more pronounced if you know it’s the director himself behind the camera, operating under his usual pseudonym of Peter Andrews. There’s a sly in-joke buried in there somewhere: The key to Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence” is, well, Steven Soderbergh’s presence.
There is also, perhaps, a sly metaphor for the direct and indelible ways in which the best filmmakers can haunt us — and Soderbergh, now 61, has been one of those filmmakers for some time now. Arriving in Park City exactly 35 years after “sex, lies, and videotape” took Sundance by storm, “Presence” offers further evidence (as if it were needed) that Soderbergh has never shaken off his restlessly experimental edge. Deploying lightweight digital cameras and a seamless mix of visual effects and old-fashioned stunt work, he remains American independent cinema’s great problem solver, someone who approaches each movie as a logistical puzzle and sees aesthetic and financial limitations as creative enablers rather than deterrents.
But can Soderbergh solve the great problem of American cinema itself — namely, the sense that the audience for independent movies, limited and self-selecting to begin with, has dwindled to nothingness in the wake of flashier, more technologically au courant entertainment alternatives? If not, it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. Long before the pandemic swept in and shut down theaters (in some cases permanently), Soderbergh has been one of the industry’s most insightful thinkers and speakers on the challenge of making thoughtful, adventurous movies in a climate that has always been hostile to art. At the same time, Soderbergh has continued to make his own canny counterarguments, usually in the form of movies. And for all his well-earned cynicism about the industry, these movies — invariably smart, deft and disarmingly modest — have continued to express an unwavering optimism about the possibilities of the medium.
Some of those features have been unveiled on streaming platforms like Netflix (“High Flying Bird,” “The Laundromat”) and HBO Max (“Let Them All Talk,” “Kimi”), and it’s easy enough to see “Presence” following suit: This is a movie that will glide effortlessly into your living room and linger in the air afterward. But I hope a theatrical distributor buys the movie, an audience picture through and through that deserves, among other things, the horror-loving date-night crowds that reliably flock to the umpteenth “Saw” sequel. Will Soderbergh’s elegant camerawork and gore-free effects prove too subtle for those viewers? In some cases, sure. But an industry that doesn’t let them discover it for themselves in the first place truly has given up the ghost.
An image from the documentary “Girls State.”
(Apple/Sundance Institute)
Soderbergh’s presence here made for a nice 40th birthday present from the festival to itself, though he certainly wasn’t the only Park City veteran in attendance. The festival got off to an attention-grabbing start Thursday night with “Freaky Tales,” a funny, bloody valentine to the city of Oakland from the returning writing-directing duo of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, whose 2006 debut feature, “Half Nelson,” was a highlight of my very first Sundance Film Festival. Subsequent efforts, among them the superb “Sugar” (2008) and “Mississippi Grind” (2015), confirmed Fleck and Boden’s standing as two of the most promising independent voices in American movies. But that was before they abandoned those models of low-key realism for “Captain Marvel,” a franchise blockbuster that proved a dispiriting waste of their distinctive talents.
The unevenly entertaining “Freaky Tales” suggests a promising attempted return to indie basics, one with a healthy smattering of gonzo fantasy, a typically strong supporting turn from Pedro Pascal and some intricate storytelling gamesmanship replete with Tarantino-esque structural fillips. Set in 1987 Oakland, an as-yet-ungentrified hotbed of predatory cops and neo-Nazi scum, the movie rattles off a quartet of stories, each of which becomes a kind of revenge fantasy in which Black, Asian, Latino and queer protagonists rise up and sometimes join forces against bullies of every racist and homophobic stripe. Before long the movie is awash in a river of gore, green neon and Golden State Warriors references. It diverts for a while, only to dissipate almost immediately upon conclusion.
Another returning duo: Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, previously at Sundance with their excellent documentaries “The Overnighters” and “Boys State.” They’re back this year with a bristlingly insightful sequel to the latter: “Girls State,” which offers a microcosmic look at a one-week high-school program built to give young American women a firsthand taste of democratic self-governance. In tracking a handful of protagonists whose talents, aspirations and dreams will shape the outcome of this exercise, McBaine and Moss shrewdly apply the roving observational techniques of “Boys State” to remarkably different ends. Unsurprisingly, the abortion debate looms with great urgency over “Girls State,” which was shot not long before the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. There’s also a fascinating dive into the inequalities that bedevil Boys State and Girls State themselves, reminding us how organizations often embody, at a structural level, some of the very problems they’re ostensibly trying to rectify.
Juan Jesús Varela in the movie “Sujo.”
(Ximena Amann/Sundance Institute)
“Boys State” began streaming on Apple TV+ in 2020; “Girls State” will arrive on the same platform, with similar election-season timing, on April 5. It will probably take longer for American audiences to discover the rewards of another duo-directed movie, “Sujo,” an early standout in Sundance’s international narrative competition. With any luck, though, this tender, harrowing and beautifully modulated coming-of-age drama will find its place in the art-house ecosystem and boost the profile of the Mexican filmmakers Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero, reteaming after their much-acclaimed debut, “Identifying Features” (which Valadez directed and co-wrote with Rondero).
“Sujo” is named after a young boy who is raised in the shadow of cartel violence — an early scene finds his father, a sicario, locking the child in a car before heading off to dispose of some dirty business — but who is then set on a jagged path toward a better, safer life. (He’s played at different ages by Juan Jesús Varela and Kevin Aguilar.) Along the way, Sujo is nurtured by a number of wise women, including a pair of tough-loving aunties and a patient schoolteacher, who recognize his strength and potential but also know he must ultimately forge his own path. It’s that principled refusal of easy outcomes that makes “Sujo,” for all its tense, violent realism, so delicate and moving. Here, too, a compassionate spiritual presence seems to assert itself, in front of the camera as well as behind it.
Pizza Movie (2026) Director: Nick Kocher and Brian McElhaney, Star: Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone
Somehow, I got through an hour of this movie. I was seconds away from turning off in the first fifteen minutes because of the juvenile humor. Pizza Movie is too silly, repetitive, and the characters are annoying. Stranger Things Gaten Matarazzo and Sean Giambrone star as college friends, Jack and Montgomery. College angles are rarely seen in films right now, and that’s the one saving grace of the film. Similar to high school, people are also trying to fit in. The story and visuals were too corny. You can only watch someone’s head exploding for so long without letting yours.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) Director: Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, Stars: Chris Pratt, Charlie Day, Anya Taylor-Joy
I never saw the first Super Mario Brothers Movie when it was out, but I heard it got positive reviews. My brother always loved playing Super Mario video games as a kid, and I’d watch him. I tagged along with my friends to see Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and it’s a cute and fun film. I like it when movies explore the video game world. The animation creates unique worlds and characters. The characters are split into their own storylines, and for me, I felt like it worked. It adds more action, especially for kids who are seeing the films.
Emily in Paris Season 5 (2025) Creator: Darren Star, Stars: Lily Collins and Ashley Park
After a bright spot in season 4, I thought season 5 of Emily in Paris would continue its growth in the story and its protagonist, but no, it’s all drained out in the usual Emily (Lily Collins) mishaps. Ashley Park (Mindy) has become too good for this show. Emily and Mindy waste several opportunities because of their love lives. The whole relationship angle is ruining it. I don’t understand why Alfie (Lucien Laviscount) is still in the show. I thought writers learned their lesson, but by the last episode, they’re continuing to bring the past into an apparent season 6.
Sarah’s Oil (2025) Director: Cyrus Nowrasteh, Stars: Naya Desir-Johnson and Zachary Levi
There’s always history lurking right beneath our noses. Sarah’s Oil (2025) tells the true story of Sarah Rector, an Oklahoma-born African American girl who became the first black female millionaire in the U.S. Naya Desir-Johnson is fierce and driven as Sarah. Zachary Levi is also along for the ride as Bert, a man who helps Sarah. Kate (Bridget Regan) was another favorite character as an intelligent woman. Cyrus Nowrasteh was drawn to the subject for its story and its themes. Nowrasteh’s direction is compelling as he unearths a hidden story from history. The film is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Jack Goes Boating (2014) Director and Star: Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Ryan
Jack Goes Boating (2014) didn’t quite work for me, largely because of its slow pace and uneven storytelling. The film stars the late Seymour Hoffman as Jack, who also directed the film. This was Hoffman’s first and only time in the directing chair. Amy Ryan also stars in the film, giving a solid performance. This was also based on a play that Hoffman starred in. Jack wants to participate in a swim championship. That’s hardly what the film is about, tracking other characters’ stories. While the film aims for quiet intimacy, it ultimately drags, making it an underwhelming viewing experience.
You Kill Me (2016), Director: John Dahl, Stars: Ben Kingsley, Tea Leoni, Luke Wilson
Meet You Kill Me (2016), yet another film that I found in the museum of underrated gems. The concept revolves around Frank (Ben Kingsley), a hitman, who is sent to an A.A. meeting to get his mind focused again. A different story happens, where Frank falls in love with Laurel (Tea Leoni). Leoni is one of my favorite actresses. It also stars the funny Luke Wilson. I liked the trio’s dynamics. You Kill Me is a mental health movie. It’s okay to make changes if you’re not happy. I recommended that you keep an eye out for this movie.
Entertainment
Review: Trigger warning? ‘For Want of a Horse’ gives new meaning to the term ‘animal lover’
“For Want of a Horse,” a play by Olivia Dufault receiving its world premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre, wants to have a rational conversation about a taboo topic that can provoke instant outrage.
The subject is zoophilia, not to be confused with bestiality, though for many of us it will be a distinction without much of a difference.
Calvin (Joey Stromberg), a good-looking, mild-mannered married accountant, has harbored a secret for much of his life. He has a thing for horses. His erotic interest began at an early age, and all his efforts to lead a normal life have left him depressed and contemplating suicide.
His wife, Bonnie (Jenny Soo), is a permissive kindergarten teacher who’s having difficulty restraining a girl in her class who has discovered the joys of masturbation. Worried about her husband, she discovers through his browsing history that he’s once again visiting strange animal sites.
She suggests he keep a horse, explaining that she doesn’t want to end up a widow or divorcée. Calvin is taken aback by her generosity but has come to recognize that his preference is more than a kink. It’s part of his identity — and maybe the only part that makes his life seem worth living.
Joey Stromberg and Jenny Soo in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
A horse named Q-Tip (Griffin Kelly) enters the couple’s lives. A stable is secured, and the mare, who senses that something strange is going on, is indulged with apples and caresses.
Kelly, a statuesque presence in a dress, harness and boots, brings the horse to life with wild, unpredictable movements. The sheer size of the animal poses a threat to humans. One kick, as Q-Tip herself explains in one of her thought-bubble monologues, is capable of penetrating a steel wall. But controlling an animal’s food supply is an effective way of winning over its trust.
Calvin has found support in the online zoophilia community. PJ (Steven Culp), a man whose current inamorata is a bichon frise, is considering moving to a country where zoophilia isn’t illegal. He’s tired of the shame and the secrecy. He’s proud of his attachment to pooch, even if his thing for dogs has cost him contact with his daughter and ex-wife.
Dufault doesn’t shy away from sexual details. For PJ, intimacy depends on peanut butter. Calvin describes the physical signals that reveal Q-Tip’s erotic satisfaction. The play occasionally descends into sitcom humor. (PJ says he’s considering creating a human-dog dating app called Rin Tin Tinder.) But mostly the subdued tone steers clear of sensationalism.
The production, directed by Elana Luo, is scrupulously well-acted by the four-person cast. Stromberg makes Calvin seem not only reasonable but surprisingly sensitive. Soo’s Bonnie sweetly embodies the excesses of a kind of progressive piety. As PJ, Culp gruffly embraces his role as the play’s polemical fire-starter. And Kelly’s Q-Tip, in the production’s most physically demanding performance, straddles the human-animal divide with theatrical aplomb.
Steven Culp, left, and Joey Stromberg in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
The open-mindedness that Dufault, a trans playwright, brings to the play creates some dramatic slack. Possibly the same fear of making value judgments that has inhibited Bonnie from imposing common-sense discipline in her classroom has robbed “For Want of a Horse” of a propulsive point of view.
The play moves monotonously between Calvin and Bonnie’s bedroom and the stable. Scenic designer Alex Mollo has worked out an efficient way of shifting between these realms by employing the same set of wooden trunks. But the argument of the play doesn’t so much build as elapse.
Time takes its toll, and Calvin eventually has to make a decision. But the character who interested me most was Bonnie, whose reality is only glimpsed. The play tacitly uses her husband’s threat of suicide as a trump card. Zoophilia isn’t merely a fetish for Calvin but a nonnegotiable part of his identity.
This questionable assumption can be psychologically scrutinized not only from Calvin’s point of view but also from his wife’s. The play wants to have an intelligent debate, but it doesn’t want to interrogate certain political positions too skeptically.
At one point, Bonnie objects when Calvin compares his situation to that of homosexuality, but the conversation ends there. The reality is that the right wing has been making a similar claim, arguing that same-sex marriage opens the door to bestiality, polygamy and incest. “For Want of a Horse” inadvertently lends legitimacy to this line of reasoning.
Griffin Kelly in “For Want of a Horse” at the Echo Theater Company.
(Cooper Bates)
Not that extremist positions should be off limits, but they ought to be more rigorously addressed. Similarly, Bonnie’s concern about the issue of consent — how can a horse say yes to intercourse with a human — is introduced only to be dismissed in a shrug of mild-mannered bothsidesism.
While watching “For Want of a Horse,” I recalled a program on PBS called “My Wild Affair” that wasn’t about zoophilia but about the problematic nature of human bonds with untamed animals. Relationships with a seal, an elephant and a rhino, for example — obsessive, protective, loving friendships — all seemed to end if not in outright tragedy, then in shattering heartbreak.
Q-Tip is rightfully given the play’s last word, and Kelly, an actor (HBO’s “The Book of Queer”), writer and comedian, is the production’s driving force. We can never know what’s inside this mare’s mind because Q-Tip’s brain has evolved so differently from our own. Kelly plays the anthropomorphic game while retaining some of the inscrutability of a four-legged creature.
It is through language that we, as humans, traverse the chasm separating us from one another. That’s not possible with animals, even with our closest domestic companions. (Try explaining a necessary medical procedure to a cat.)
“For Want of a Horse” sets out to speak about the unspeakable, but its construction may be too tame for such a wild subject.
‘For Want of a Horse’
Where: Echo Theater Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., L.A.
When: 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays, Mondays; 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends May 25
Tickets: $15-$42.75
Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes (no intermission)
Info: echotheatercompany.com
Desert Warrior, 2026.
Directed by Rupert Wyatt.
Starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Ben Kingsley, Ghassan Massoud, Sharlto Copley, Sami Bouajila, Lamis Ammar, Géza Röhrig, Numan Acar, Nabil Elouahabi, Hakeem Jomah, Ramsey Faragallah, Saïd Boumazoughe, and Soheil Bostani.
SYNOPSIS:
An honorable and mysterious rogue, known as Hanzala, makes himself an enemy of the Emperor Kisra after he helps a fugitive king and princess in the desert.
With aspirations of being a historical epic harkening back to the sword and sandal blockbusters of yesteryear, Rupert Wyatt’s seventeenth-century Arabia tale is about as generic and epically dull as one would expect from a film plainly titled Desert Warrior. Yes, there appear to be real locations here, and there are some admittedly sweeping shots of various tribes storming into battle on horseback and camels, but it’s all in service of a mess that is both miscast and questionable as the work of a filmmaking team of mostly white creatives.
The story of Emperor Kisraa (Ben Kingsley, a distracting presence even with only one or two scenes) rounding up women from other tribes to be his concubines, which inevitably became the catalyst for a revolution led by Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart), uniting all the divided clans and strategizing battle plans for flanking and poisoning, is undeniably ripe for cinematic treatment. The problem is that what’s here from Rupert Wyatt (and screenwriters Erica Beeney, Gary Ross, and David Self) is less than nothing in the primary creative process; no one seems to have a connection to Arabic heritage or culture, but they have made a flat-out boring film that is often narratively incoherent.
Following the death of her father and escaping the clutches of oppression, the honorable Princess Hind joins forces with a troubled, nameless bandit played by Anthony Mackie (he totally belongs here…), who seems to be here solely to give the movie some star power boost without running the risk of white savior accusations. Whatever the case may be, it’s jarring, but not quite as disorienting as how little screen time he has despite being billed as the lead and how little characterization he has. It is, however, equally disorienting as some of the other names that show up along the way.
As for the other factions, Princess Hind talks to them one by one, giving the film an adventure feel that fails to capitalize on using beautiful scenery in striking or visually poignant ways at almost every turn; the leaders of these tribes also often have no character. There also isn’t much of an understanding of why these tribes are at odds with one another. This movie is filled with dialogue that consistently and shockingly amounts to vague nothingness. Nevertheless, each tribe doesn’t take much convincing to begin with, meaning that not only is the film repetitive, but it’s also lifeless when characters are in conversation.
That Desert Warrior does occasionally spring to life, and a bloated 2+ running time is a small miracle. This is typically accomplished through the occasional fight scene between factions that also serves to demonstrate Princess Hind coming into her own as a warrior. When the tribes are united in a massive-scale battle, and that plan is unfolding step by step, one certainly sees why someone would want to tell this story and pull it off with such spectacle. However, this film is as dry as the desert itself.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
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